Beautifully Broken
by beautifulmornings
Summary: Hermione is not what she seems, and tonights is a night she has seen a thousand times. She wishes she hadn't, because it breaks her every time. A romance fated to fail. Mentions suicide attempts.


Disclaimer: Characters, location, etc belong to J.K. Rowling.

The night is cold, the sky, the richest, most regal blue – a blanket scattered with glittering gems, a glistening pearl for the moon – swirls of purple and navy streak across it, and if you look closely, a mist as fine as spider webs hangs in front of the moon. In contrast, the ground is a sheet of white, the fine snow untouched by human or animal, it's so pure, so fresh, so new - unlike her. The trees are bare, frames of what they had been, ice clings to the branches like tears, sparkling in the dim light. There is no movement, except for the lone figure perched on the top of the Astronomy Tower. Barely noticeable, Hermione curls up into a small ball. The cold can not touch her, neither can the few remaining flurries of snow. This night is the most perfect she has seen in years. Artists would clamour to paint the scene, poets scramble to verbalise the beauty, but she knows it can not be done. It is not just how the night looks, but how it feels too; it holds the air of mystery, of life, pulsing gently in the still air. How ironic. This night will not be full of life for her, this night will shatter her. Again. She sighs and turns from the view, mildly disgusted with the falsity of the scene.

She had lived this same night so many times, had her heart break every time and she often wondered why she even bothered with it anymore. It was silly, it would never change, whether it was a warm summer evening, or a harsh winter morning; the script was the same, the only reminder of each boy were his last two words, and the icy numbness her heart took on every time it cracked a little more. Those two words, she loathed them. I'm Sorry - they weren't. Those boys, they were never sorry. They were relieved, they could not deal with her withdrawal from them, and the way they would catch her crying on the roof at least once a week. No, they would never understand. Yet somehow, she desperately wished for it to work every time. One day she sighs to herself, one day.

Footsteps ring in the clear night, getting closer and closer, and she steels herself. The footsteps are her funeral march. She wishes she could throw herself from the roof – not that it would make any difference – and be done with this. Her heart has barely recovered from the last boy. Silvery hair slides through the hatch, followed by a face half in shadow. Eyes of ice catch the light. He turns and reveals himself, and Hermione feels her breathe catch in her chest, her heart freezing. She clencheds her eyes tightly shut, wishing it was not so. She knows that look. A cool hand lies on her shoulder. A whispered voice.

I love you.

I'm sorry.

Her heart was breaking. Shattering in her chest. Her tears were the most precious of jewels that night. Her eyes open and she stares straight at him, willing the words to change. His cool breathe brushes her cheek, feather soft. He leans in, his lips lightly skimming her mouth. Straightening he turns suddenly, striding to the hatch in the roof. Her shoulders shake with her tears. Her teeth stab into her lip, pulling at it in her distress. She takes a shuddering breathe and realises she can not hear him anymore. Turning to look at the exit she sees that he has not left, he remains there, frozen. He looks captivated, curious as he looks at her. His lips part, and a single breathe spills out. The boy seems to steel himself before the words tumble from his lips, a bucket of ice water over her head. He is the first to have asked.

Why are you doing this to me.

This one is different. He wants to know. Maybe he cares enough not to let go. A bitter smile creeps onto her face as she realises how fanciful that wish is. Darkly, she observes the fluttering hem of her dress. Dangling her legs over the edge of the Tower, Hermione's voice is barely more than a whisper, but she tells him. Everything. Tells him how he could not help but want her, it is her nature, to attract and destroy, though she does not wish it to be that way. Tells him how she can not stop it, it is fated to repeat itself over and over and over, until the boy dies, or leaves her. Tells him how it breaks her heart to have to push them away, so she does not have to watch them waste away as they need her more and more and how she is denied from satiating that need. Tells him of the mistakes she made with the first few, letting them get too close, seeing them die, begging for her with their last breath. Tells how she can not help but love them back, every single one, and how it shatters her heart, this eternal punishment bestowed upon her. She admits that it is not her fault and that she is paying for the sins of another. Even clinically listing all the times she has tried to end this curse: how the water at the bottom of the lake feels in her lungs; what it feels like the fall through the air ready for the inevitable collision; the burning of the poison of too many pills; the way blood beads on the skin underneath the blade. But it's the last confession which stops his visibly pounding heart and silences the breathe in his lungs. Three words that changed the world for them.

I can't die.

He lets out a strangled laugh, and she swivels eyes glittering an awful black, challenging him to mock her. Lithely she stands, her manner so different to that which she hides behind in school. Laughing cruelly at the shock on his face, she stands poised on the edge of the tower, sees him lunge as she drops. Hears him cry out. Another bitter smile. The wind rushes past. Then the wings unfurl, and she soars up, she calms as the wings that she hates save her again pushing her into the sky. Oh, the irony. Hermione can see him from the glint of that pale hair, mouth open as she slips past, before landing next to him.

An angel he murmurs.

Fallen, she corrects.

Her eyes flutter shut, as he unsteadily leans in. He's intoxicated by her.

Don't, she breathes. That kiss would seal his fate.

Pained he leans back, understanding. She would never let him go if he gave in now, and he would be dead within the year. Her torture was to hurt, and to be hurt, she was a destroyer. Her eyes glimmer with barely concealed malice, and she asks if he wants to see what else she can do, picking up a broken slate. She plunges it into her arm, there's no mark within seconds, barely a drop of blood. Energy crackles through her, fizzing and burning in the air, he can taste it on his tongue, burning him up; he's hurting, his heart trying to beat out his chest, his mind swirling, no focus. Then it stops. He takes a deep breath. Hermion laughs cynically, the sound like needles to his ears. She sees him cower and it breaks her heart, but it's too late to stop. She can not let him go without him seeing her how she truly is, not now that she knows how much he cared, can read it in his mind and on his heart. Smiling sadly, a glow, faint but persistant, starts to spread, and she is hidden for seconds before the light dims. Her hair is longer, whipping around her in the non-existant breeze, her skin as white as the snow, her lips as red as blood. Her eyes are as green as the spring leaves, piercing his heart. She's lean, and catlike, her wings a deep bottle green, speckled with purples, blues and blacks of every shade. They are tattered and broken. The dress she wears is black as pitch, fitted to the hips, before it billows in silky folds to her ankles, her feet bare, on her ankle is the tell tale silver anklet of the fallen, the matching penchant and ring adorning her neck and finger. On her collarbone is her curse, tattooed in black on her skin, shifting in the light. The most amazing thing is the halo, a silver circlet that is both ethereal and tangible, he reaches out to touch it, before recoiling, uncertain of his actions. Her smile is heartbreaking, and he feels a familiar tug in his stomach.

Hermione folds in on herself and then she's back to her mask, the imperfections glaring through even more. The imprefections that he so adores. She was something more than he could ever hope for. She was perfect for him, his soul mate. She was thousands of years older than him. His eyes flickered shut, and he forced himself to relax, to understand. He turns to leave, the image of her standing there so haunting would stay with him til the day he died. Terrible and beautiful. A pandora's box. Beautifully broken. All the things she was to him. He turned swiftly, making it halfway down the stairs, before he suddenly stops and his voice floats through the air, as though from a million miles away.

I'll always love you.

A choked sob escapes and she knows he's gone, his hurried steps ringing in her ears. She could not live with this pain, it would break her over and over again, and drive her mad. She pulls herself up, tumbling through the hatch and in a flash she is in bed pretending she never knew the beautiful boy with hair like spun gold, and eyes that could cut you in half. Her heart burned.

**Years Later...**

Draco Malfoy could still see her, hunched and broken before him, he had married Astoria Greengrass as his parents wished, they had had several children too, but it was not her he saw when he told her he loved her, it was Hermione's face he pictured at night. He missed her. His heart throbbed in memory. Sighing he rolled over, it had been exactly 34 years since that night they were both 18 - well he had been. He would not forget, he had promised and he knew it was the truth that he spoke that night. Draco loved her still, she was his passion, the fire that burned through him. He growled in frustration, trying to block out the sounds of the sleeping woman beside him – he repulsed himself, how could he marry her, when Hermione was the once he longed for. It was sick. But he accepted long ago that it could not work, would not have worked; he would have been dead already, never been able to live with her like he wanted, it would only break her heart more, and that was something he could not do. Sliding out of bed silently, he pads out onto the balcony, staring out over the country wondering if she was doing the same, and thinking of him. He knew she would not be, she would have found someone else. The curse would not allow her to stay away from the boys that would break her. He whispered the wwords he had whispered to her that night into the darkness, before returning to the wife he did not love, and the life he did not want.


End file.
